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Best Practices to Follow to Automate Testing

For a successful application or software, you need to develop apps bug-free, or you have to make applications bug-free. These are the only two ways by which you can provide the best user experience. Honestly speaking, you cannot develop an app that has no bugs. It will have bugs and will creep in at every stage of development.

Also, the apps developed these days must function without any issues on any platform, operating system, or browser. And the apps have become smarter and more sophisticated than they were years back. So the solution to this is comprehensive testing. Because manual testing in this scenario becomes a complicated task that doesn’t yield the desired results. 

Now with Automation testing, this job has become much easier and effectively eases the lives of the tester. With this approach in place, a tester can now manually test any specific feature that they need. Regression tests and other repetitive tests are best done by machines because there are huge possibilities for human error to creep in. So these automated tests help you generate higher Return on Investments (ROI), reduce the time-to-market, improve product quality, generate accurate results, and come with many more benefits attached. If you plan on mastering Selenium, check out Selenium Online Training

To set up automated tests in motion, you must follow some industry policies and practices to yield the maximum output. You also need the right testing tool, test automation frameworks, etc. This way, you can organize and execute tests for maximum efficiency. So here are the best practices that you need to follow to automate tests.

You have to decide which tests need to be automated and which are not.

You must decide which tests to be automated and which not to. Since it’s impossible to automate every single test. So you must start by asking the right question, that is, “Which test will benefit from making it automated?” You got your answer, but make sure all the below mentioned qualities are present in the tests: 

  • Requires repetitive tests and contains a large amount of data. 
  • Prone to human error
  • Uses multiple data sets
  • Tests that extend across multiple builds
  • It can run on different platforms, hardware, or Operating systems, etc. 
  • Relies on frequently used functions

You can check out the below video to get a clear idea of what is Selenium Automation Testing and its features:

Divide Different tasks based on skills

You must divide and assign test cases according to the skillsets of various testers in the team. If a professional is experienced in some tool, then they need to be handed over the test cases that could be tested using that tool. If your test case requires an open-source tool, then assign it to that professional who is an expert in open-source tools.

Take Collective Ownership of Tests

Never assign all the test cases or the entire automation testing projects to a single tester and make others sit in the dark. Everyone involved in the testing team must be on board at all times and should be aware of everything happening for improved communication and transparency.

Remove the Uncertainties

The essential point of automation is to achieve consistent, accurate results every time. Every failed testing tester has to figure out what went wrong. But all the errors are not truly an error. It could be an inconsistency or a false positive. So before going for testing, you must remove any uncertainty. You can do this by removing unstable tests in regression packs. Sometimes these automated tests miss important information as they are outdated. So make up a testing plan and ensure all of the information is updated and checked as needed.

Pick the Right Tool

Entire automated testing relies on tools. So choose your tools accordingly. Before selecting the one you must consider the nature of the software (web-based or mobile-based), the programmer’s experience (software frameworks, tools, languages known to the tester, etc.), and whether the tool required is an open-source or commercial package.

Always Test on Real Devices

Device fragmentation is a real concern for testers. They have to test the code in real devices in real-life situations like low battery, incoming calls, etc. If they cannot arrange for that in-house, they can opt for a cloud-based approach.

Have a habit of keeping records for better debugging.

You have to have proper records for every failed test in the form of text or video logs. So that they can be used for all future references. Choose a tool that has the feature to record in-built if possible.

Use Data-Driven Tests

Use Automated tests in case of test cases having a huge volume of data, and use multiple data sets. Because in such scenarios, manual testing is not at all feasible.

Make a Habit of Testing Early and Frequently

Testing is paramount. And the earlier you start, the better it is. Run frequent tests at regular intervals to detect bugs from the initial stages of the development lifecycle. It will save money and effort in the longer run. If you are a beginner at Selenium, check out this Selenium Tutorial for Beginners.

Make it a priority to provide test reports that are detailed and of quality.

Automated testing is designed to reduce workloads for the QA teams. So set up reporting infrastructure and configure it to produce detailed and high-quality reports for every test.

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